


Riddle Me

by chiiyo86



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blindness, Kissing, M/M, Riddles, Something Made Them Do It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-21 22:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12466856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/pseuds/chiiyo86
Summary: After Artagan strikes a deal with Vox Machina to help them get back to Vecna, Percy finds himself blind, with Vax as his only companion, in a network of underground tunnels. Together, they have to make their way out of there while playing for the Archfey's entertainment.





	Riddle Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eluvia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eluvia/gifts).



> Spoilers up to episode 113, where I have events diverge a little. Hope you enjoy this treat!

Percy opened his eyes and was met with darkness. He instantly knew that it wasn’t because the lights were out, even as his heart pounded and his mind rebelled against the truth. He wasn’t feeling confused or disoriented despite the sudden displacement, but remembered everything that had led him here: their desperate escape from Thar Amphala to the Feywild, their stumbling upon their old friend Artagan. How the Archfey had agreed to alter the Feywild’s time dilatation effect so they could rest, on two conditions. One, that they would build him a door to the material world; and two, that they would ‘provide him with some entertainment.’ And so now Percy stood, blind once again in the Feywild, with no idea of where he was and where the others might be. He patted himself down, but wasn’t surprised to find that his guns were gone. 

“Anyone here?” he called without much hope.

From the way his voice echoed, it sounded like he was indoor and in a wide room. The air was cool and smelled musty like the underground. 

“Hey, Percy!” a voice answered, which startled him. “Thank the gods you’re here too. What _is_ this place? What happened to the others?”

It was Vax, and the simple fact that he wasn’t blind _and_ alone helped Percy loosen up a little. Footsteps echoed closer until Vax stood right next to him.

“What’s wrong with you?” Vax asked. “Are you—”

The air moved when Vax waved a hand in front of his eyes and Percy snatched his wrist to make him stop. Vax’s skin felt unnaturally cool to the touch, but Percy wanted to pretend it didn’t bother him so he kept his hold longer than warranted.

“Yes, I’m blind, _again_. Artagan’s idea of a joke, I suppose. Don’t even try to take advantage of it. I’m not in the mood for that.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Well, last time—”

“I’m not in the mood for it either, all right? Let’s just try to find the others. They could be somewhere in there.”

Percy dropped Vax’s wrist and angled away, as if he could examine the room with his own eyes. Now that the rush of adrenaline from being stolen away and turned blind had ebbed, various aches and a general weariness from their adventures in the Titan and their fight with Vecna were settling again. All he wanted was to sit down and rest, but Vax was right. They needed to find the others. If they were okay, they had to be worried about Vax and him. If they weren’t…

“Can you, hmm, describe the room to me?” he asked. “Where are we, exactly?”

“Oh, right. Well, you’re not exactly missing much. Bare stone walls, high ceiling, and only one set of iron double doors at the end of the room. We don’t have much choice.”

“Indeed we don’t. Lead the way, I guess.”

“Do you want me to—”

A cool touch on the back of his hand made Percy yelp in surprise.

“Oh, wow, sorry, it’s just me, sorry!’

“A little warning next time would be nice,” Percy said tightly. “You don’t need to hold my hand, I’ll just—” He fisted his hand in the fabric of Vax’s cloak. “Let’s go. We shouldn’t waste time.”

The room was even bigger than Percy had thought, because they walked for longer than he’d expected before they reached the door. The floor was smooth, with nothing that could make Percy stumble, so it was easy to follow Vax with a hold on his cloak. Vax checked the iron doors for traps; finding none, he tried to open them.

“What do you want to bet it won’t be that easy—oh, okay, never mind. I guess Artagan doesn’t think me picking a lock is entertaining enough.”

The doors didn’t make a sound as Vax pushed them open. Percy could appreciate a well-oiled door, but the overall silence in top of his blindness was unnerving. It almost felt like he was surrounded by emptiness, with Vax as his only point of anchor. 

“Tell me what you see,” he urged Vax. He hated being left in the dark, both figuratively and literally. 

“Just another room. It’s smaller, but there still isn’t much to see in terms of architecture or furniture. There’s two sets of doors this time, one on the left and one of the right. And I think—” Vax paused. “I think there’s something written on the wall in front of us.”

“Where does the light come from?”

“Huh?”

“Obviously you’re able to see your surroundings, so there must be at least _some_ light. Are there any torches on the walls? Glowing stones?”

“Now that you mention it, I’m actually not sure where it comes from. There’s this—diffuse lighting that doesn’t seem to come from a specific source. It’s not very bright, so I’m not sure how well you’d be able to see even if you weren’t—you know.”

“Well, there’s that, I guess,” Percy said dryly. “You said there was writing on the wall. Let’s check it out. Whatever it is, it’s probably important.”

“Yeah, probably. Just stay behind me, okay? In case there are traps.”

Percy fought the urge to let go of Vax and just stomp across the room to the back wall. From Vax’s description there wasn’t any obstacles between them and that wall, so he _could_ do it. But then he wouldn’t be able to read the writing, and Vax, annoyingly, was right about the possibility of traps. If Artagan’s notion of entertainment was to watch Percy get skewered because of his sheer stubbornness and contradictory spirit, then Percy couldn’t make it too easy for him. 

“I’ll let you be my living shield,” he said.

“Not very living, these days,” Vax said, and Percy wanted very badly to punch him.

They walked across the room without issues, and Vax started reading the writing on the wall in silence. 

“Well?” Percy asked impatiently. 

“Oh, right, sorry. It’s a riddle: ‘The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?’” Percy felt Vax’s shrug from the pull of his cloak. “I’ll go check the doors.”

Vax tried to step away from the wall, but was held back by the fact that Percy wasn’t moving with him.

“Hey, I said I was going to check the doors. You’re coming or what?”

“Footsteps.”

“What?”

“The answer to that riddle: ‘The more you take, the more you leave behind.’ It’s footsteps.”

“Okay, but—Oh.”

Percy tensed at the feeling that Vax’s attention had been caught by something he was seeing. “What? Vax, what is it?”

“The doors on the right opened.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

They didn’t move for a moment. If Percy had his eyes in working order, they probably would have been sharing a look, silently asking each other: _Should we walk through those doors, or is it really stupid?_ But Percy couldn’t see, so he had to ask out loud, “What do we do?”

“Well, I’m guessing the doors opened because you gave the right answer…”

“ _Of course_ I gave the right answer,” Percy said contemptuously. “This was ridiculously easy.”

“Not doubting you, Freddy, but either the doors opened as a reward for your answer, or to lure us into a trap.”

“With an Archfey, it could really go either way. Maybe you should go check the other doors, see if we can’t make our own path.”

They went to check the other set of doors—or, rather, Vax checked the doors while Percy held onto his cloak like a small child to his mother’s skirts on market day. No doubt that the prick to his pride was part of what made the whole thing entertaining to Artagan. Percy tried not to be irritated at Vax for it and to focus instead all of his ire on the Archfey. 

Vax couldn’t get the other doors to open, which meant that some very powerful magic must be at play here. It didn’t give them any other choice but to go through the open doors, but Percy could tell that it made Vax just as uneasy as it did Percy. The doors led into a corridor of stone walls and diffuse lighting. Vax walked with Percy trailing behind him, pausing from time to time so he could check for traps. He found a few, all easily disarmed, and they made their way pretty easily to another room, which, according to Vax, looked identical to the previous one, with doors on the left and on the right, except that the writing on the back wall was different. 

“Another riddle: ‘I fly without wings, I cry without eyes. What am I?’” Well, Percy?”

“A cloud,” Percy said. “Those riddles are boring. Is it really the best you can do?” he shouted in the general direction of the ceiling.

“The doors on the right opened, so you must be right,” Vax said. “But let’s try not to provoke the powerful Archfey who has us trapped, okay?”

“Because you’re so good at not provoking powerful beings,” Percy replied, but he still felt a belated sense of dread at the thought of how Artagan might answer to his silly provocation.

They walked down another corridor, and into another room, much like the previous two. There was a riddle on the wall, and, when Percy answered it right, the doors on the right opened. They went through this same pattern a few more times. Each time only the doors on the right opened, and since Percy was certain that his answers were, well, _right_ , he assumed that the left doors would only open if he got the answer wrong, and that what would await them behind wouldn’t match the definition of pleasant. 

It was hard to gauge how much time had passed. They’d found no sign that the others were there with them, or, Vax said, any sign that anyone had gone through these tunnels before. The riddles got harder, although not to the point that they were a real challenge to Percy, but he was tired and the monotony, the darkness and the eerie underground silence were getting to him. They walked into yet another room, and Vax read him the new riddle: “A man shaves several times a day, yet he still has a beard. Who is this man?”

Those tunnels and silly riddles were _really_ getting to him, because Percy felt a giggle bubble up his throat and he said, “Sounds like Grog, no?”

Vax chuckled, but then cut himself off. “Oh, no! _Shit._ ”

“What happened?”

“The doors on the left opened,” Vax said darkly.

Percy felt cold. “What? No! No, no, no. It was a joke! It was a fucking joke. A barber, that’s the right answer. A barber! Can you hear me?”

“The doors on the left are still open.”

“Can you check the other doors anyway? Maybe—”

Vax checked the doors on the right, but they remained stubbornly closed. Percy shouted his answer to the ceiling a few more times, with a lot of assorted cussing, but Artagan or whatever system or magic was governing this place kept on ignoring him. The doors on the left were the only way out of the room, and after a long while of knocking along all the walls for a hidden entrance, they had to resign themselves to go through them. They wouldn’t find the rest of Vox Machina if they didn’t move.

“Let’s proceed a little differently,” Vax said. “Stay put, and I’ll walk a little down the way to check for traps. When I’m sure it’s safe, I’ll come and get you.”

“Wait, no, Vax, don’t—”

Percy’s fingers clutched on empty space, Vax already out of his reach. A few echoing footsteps and then there was a rush of intense heat stinging his face, the sudden whooshing sound of flames.

“Vax?” Percy called, his heart in his throat. “Vax, answer me!”

No answer, not that Percy had really expected one. The scent of burning flesh still lingered in the air. Throwing all caution to the wind, Percy stumbled a few steps forward and fell down on his knees. He patted the floor in front of him, still painfully hot from the fire, and his fingers returned sticky with greasy ashes. Vax, reduced to almost nothing just as quickly as when Vecna had disintegrated him during their first fight against him.

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” Percy frantically murmured to himself like a madman. “He’ll be back.”

This was part of his deal with the Raven Queen, wasn’t it? Until Vecna was dealt with, Vax was virtually immortal. On all four, Percy made his way to one of the walls and sat with his back against it. He couldn’t continue on his own. If _Vax_ had been caught in a trap, then Percy didn’t stand a chance in his current condition. He just needed to wait until Vax was back. 

He hadn’t counted on how nerve-wracking the wait would be. Time seemed to flow very slowly, or maybe it was just that Percy had no way to measure it. As the seconds, minutes, hours dragged by his mind was assailed by thoughts of self-recrimination—how could he have been so _stupid?_ —and a maddening whirlwind of questions. Was there a time limit on their trials? What if Vax took too long to come back? What was happening to the others in the meantime? Were they safe? Would Vax come back where he’d been killed, or at their starting point? Would he have to go through all the other rooms again on his own? 

And then, because the wait was starting to feel a little hopeless, Percy began to doubt that Vax would really be back. Maybe he’d been tricked by the goddess, or had misunderstood their deal. Percy would have to get out of here alone and face the others, tell Vex that he’d let her twin brother be burned to ashes, tell Keyleth that he’d been a burden dragging her boyfriend down. That the time they all should have had left with Vax had been taken away from them. _No, this can’t be. I refuse to accept this._

He was about to get back on his feet, burning with aimless determination, when the sound of footsteps made him freeze. 

“Percy? It’s me, Vax.”

Percy relaxed and leaned back against the wall. “You took your time,” he said. He hadn’t cried, but he still sounded hoarse. 

“Uh, sorry? I didn’t really feel time passing. It was instantaneous for me.”

Percy reached out in the dark and felt Vax’s corpse-cold hand close around his to help him up. 

“How could you be so careless as to walk into Artagan’s stupid trap?” Percy asked irritably. 

“It wasn’t stupid,” Vax replied. “There was absolutely no sign of it. We stood no chance. If you had been with me, you’d have—”

“I bet Artagan was counting on that. This isn’t supposed to kill us, although it doesn’t mean it won’t.”

“Well, next time you get it wrong, you’ll stay behind so I can take the brunt of it again.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Percy said.

The corridor led them back to the room they’d come from without any other incident, and this time when Percy gave his answer—‘a barber’—the doors on the right opened and they found their safe corridor with the childishly-simple traps. Percy made good on his promise for the next few rooms, but he was exhausted and his head ached. Words were starting to lose their meaning, the riddles and the rooms all starting to blur together. 

“What has cities, but no houses; forests, but no trees; and water, but no fish?”

“A map.”

“What belongs to you but others use it more than you do?”

“Your name.”

“What is harder to catch the faster you run?”

“Your breath.”

“What is it that no man ever yet did see, which never was, but always is to be?”

“It’s, um.” Percy rubbed his forehead, trying to relieve the pain that had built behind it. “Death? No, that’s not it—”

But it was too late, the doors on the left had already opened. They didn’t look through the room for another exit, this time; both of them were too tired and they knew there was no point to it. 

“Don’t step out of the room until I tell you it’s safe,” Vax told Percy.

“Let’s not pretend we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Percy said, gritting his teeth.

He felt Vax’s hand give his wrist a quick squeeze. “I’ll be back. Just stay in the room.”

He released Percy, then stepped away. There was no fire, this time; Percy heard the hissing sound of an arrow cutting through the air, then hitting flesh, and a faint dying gurgle. Ignoring Vax’s warning, Percy rushed forward and managed by some miracle to catch Vax’s body before it hit the ground.

“Vax?”

The body, heavy and cold in his arms, dissolved suddenly into ashes, leaving Percy covered in them. The arrow clattered on the ground. Percy could smell blood, though there was none on his hands. Vax must have been hit in the throat. Percy shook the ashes off his clothes and dragged himself against a wall to settle for another wait. It was cold inside the tunnel; not the crisp cold from the winters in Whitestone, but the damp, insidious sort that seeped into your bones. Percy had been underground long enough now that it felt like he’d never be warm again. The darkness and silence pressed on him like solid things, and he was plagued with a devastating feeling of loneliness, the kind that came with knowing that you could scream and scream until your voice broke, there was no one around to hear you. He wrapped his arms around his knees, trying to make himself comfortable. 

Maybe it was because he was so exhausted that it muted every discomfort, but he actually managed to fall asleep where he sat, and it was Vax shaking his shoulder that woke him up. 

“You’re back,” Percy said dumbly, his brain still addled from sleep. 

“Said I would, didn’t I? Now get up, we need to give that riddle another try. Did you come up with another answer?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Back in the room where Percy had failed, he gave the riddle another try: “What is it that no man ever yet did see, which never was, but always is to be? It’s tomorrow.”

“Well done,” Vax said, patting his shoulder, which let Percy know that the doors on the right had opened. 

They hurried to the next room, for some reason pushed by the same sense of urgency, although they didn’t discuss it in so many words. They had no idea how much time had passed, what had happened to the rest of their party, whether they were waiting for them or going through trials of their own. But any time now, Artagan was going to get bored with those endless riddles.

As soon as they entered the new room, Percy knew from the way Vax stopped dead that something was wrong. He tugged on his friend’s cloak, asking wordlessly what it was. 

“There’s no riddle,” Vax said.

“No riddle? But there are doors, right?”

“Yes. Like in the other rooms: on the right and on the left.”

“Maybe they’re regular doors that you can pick?”

Vax was in the process of checking the doors on the right when a voice echoed through the room, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once.

“Congratulations!” said Artagan. “I admit I was counting on a few more failures, but you did well enough. It was very interesting to watch you turn to ashes and then come back, dear Vax’hildan.”

“Are you going to let us go, now?” Vax asked archly. 

“Oh, very soon, very soon. I want you to do one last little thing for me.”

“What is it?” Percy asked.

“It’s nothing, really. I just want the two of you to kiss. On the lips, don’t try to weasel your way out of this one.”

“Wait, _what?_ ” Percy was still clinging to Vax’s cloak and was suddenly very aware of the closeness. “Are you mad?”

“I can’t do this!” Vax said. “He’s dating my _sister._ And I have a girlfriend.”

“I know! Isn’t it fun?”

Percy noted dimly that Vax hadn’t said, _he’s not attractive._ This was madness, he thought, his heart pounding. If Vex knew that he’d kissed her brother; if Keyleth knew that he’d kissed her _boyfriend_. If they didn’t do it, though, Artagan was liable to keep them wandering the tunnels forever, and they would never see Vex or Keyleth or the rest of Vox Machina again. The entire world might be doomed, too, if they weren’t there to try and stop Vecna.

“Don’t you want to get out of here and reunite with your party?” Artagan asked slyly, as if he’d read Percy’s thoughts.

There was nothing they could answer to that. Percy felt Vax clutch his shoulders as though he thought Percy might try to struggle and wanted to keep him in place. 

“I’m sorry,” Vax said.

“Not your fault,” Percy said. Blood beat in his temples, making him feel dizzy. “You’ll have to do it, I can’t aim right now.”

“I’m the same size as Vex,” Vax said.

 _You little shit_ , Percy thought as heat rushed to his face from the wrongness of Vax’s words. He felt the cool press of Vax’s lips against his, quick and furtive, and it was over before Percy could fully realize it had happened. 

“Satisfied, now?” Vax asked Artagan bitingly.

“No, not at all. You’re calling this a kiss? A lover’s kiss, boys! Put some feelings into it!”

“You’re _forcing_ us to do this,” Percy reminded him. “This isn’t conductive to a passionate kiss.”

“Oh, come on. I know how devoted Vox Machina are to each other. I’m sure you can muster enough feeling between you two to make it look good.”

Vax sighed and Percy felt the rush of his released breath against his face. 

“Percy,” he said. “Percival, I—”

Percy knew this tone of voice from his friend. It was the one Vax used when he was going to say something melodramatic. _Feelings_ , Artagan had said, so naturally Vax was going to pour his heart out, bringing up his imminent demise as he always did these days, and Percy _did not want to hear this._

“Vax,” he said. “Shut up.”

He grabbed the side of Vax’s face and kissed him. Because Vax had mentioned his sister a moment before, Percy couldn’t help but catalogue the similarities and differences between the twins. Vax’s jaw felt very much like his sister’s, only a little bit squarer. His skin was, of course, much too cool to be normal, but when Percy started kissing him it didn’t feel as strange as he’d thought. Vax kissed him back and his kiss was very different from his twin’s; Vex’s kisses were passionate, heady, a thrilling challenge. She didn’t tug softly at Percy’s bottom lip like Vax did, and her tongue didn’t push so gently into his mouth. She liked to throw her arms around Percy’s neck, hanging herself to it. Vax, on the other hand, brushed a hand against his ear, then cupped the back of his head, drawing him even closer. His touch was soft as a caress, much more tender than Percy would have assumed from Vax to him. _Maybe he’s imagining I’m Keyleth._

“That’s what I’m talking about! Bravo!”

Artagan’s voice and the sound of his clapping hands felt a lot closer and present than it had before. Percy opened his eyes, which he hadn’t realized he’d closed, and saw Vax staring back at him with a very strange look in his eyes. Then he glanced aside and saw Artagan in person standing next to them, the satisfied smile of a cat stretching his lips.

“Very nice,” he said. “You two can now let go of each other, you know.”

Vax still had a hand at the back of Percy’s head, and Percy one cupping Vax’s cheek. They stepped apart but it felt weirdly difficult to let go, even if Percy had his sight back and didn’t need to cling to Vax any longer. 

“Your eyes?” Vax asked in a murmur.

“I’m fine,” Percy answered. “I can see again.”

He could now examine his surroundings, but they were obviously not in the tunnels anymore. They were out in the open, standing at the bottom of a grassy hill, with the perpetual twilight sky of the Feywild in the background. Running down the hill were the rest of their party, who had obviously seen them and were hurrying to get to them, Vex and Keyleth first. They all looked harried and exhausted, but not harmed any worse than they had been before. 

“Now reunite with your friends and get some rest before the battle,” Artagan said, sounding as benevolent as a caring grandmother. “I will do what I promised.”

When Percy looked back, the Archfey had disappeared. Their friends were getting close, and Percy could make out the joy and relief on Vex and Keyelth’s faces.

“We can’t tell them,” he said in a strained whisper. 

Vax glanced at him. “We have to,” he said. “I’m not leaving with that kind of secret on my conscience. They’ll understand we had to do it.”

“I know, but—” 

Artagan had forced their hands, leaving them no choice, so why did seeing Vex and Keyleth make Percy feel so guilty?

“You don’t want that on your conscience either,” Vax pressed on, his hand on Percy’s shoulder. Percy wanted to shrug him off, but didn’t. “You’ll have to be there for them afterward.”

“You’re an arsehole,” Percy told him bitterly.

“I know,” Vax said. 

“Maybe I won’t be there either afterward. We’re going up against a god. Maybe you won’t be the only one to die.”

Vax tensed. “I have to believe differently,” he said, his eyes fixed ahead on their friends running at them. “I have to believe you’ll all be fine.”

“You’re so—”

 _Selfish_ , Percy wanted to say but then the rest of Vox Machina was on them and he had his arms full of Vex, then of Keyleth and the others. After that, Percy never had a moment another moment alone with Vax to finish that thought before they were off to their final confrontation with Vecna, the Undying King.


End file.
